


Gratitude and Remorse

by Nicnac



Series: Elementary Falls [10]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, As you do, Badass!Ford, Elementary Falls AU, Family, Fluff, Ford dealing with the consequences of his idiocy, Ford is an idiot, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Stan is not helping, Tiny Twins and the Big Kids to the rescue, averting the apocalypse is easy, good communication, making up with your family is hard, poor communication, saving the world in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7846360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/pseuds/Nicnac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The key to communication is listening, and Ford's listening comprehension skills are... well, quite frankly they're terrible. But he's trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot got really long on me, so I decided to break it down into a two-shot. More is on the way, as soon as I finish it.

After that first night, not another word was spoken about Stan moving out, one way or the other. Ford had been okay with asking Stan to leave when he thought it was just Stan, because he was sure Stan would somehow manage to land on his feet. However, Stan was the guardian of their great-niece and -nephew – and probably doing a reasonably decent job at it too, given how clearly the three of them adored each other – and the idea of forcing him out of the house with two eight year olds in tow was unconscionable. But at the same time, Stan was still the man who had ruined Ford’s life twice over, and then stole his name, his house, and his life. And Ford was supposed to what, tell this man he was welcome in Ford’s home? Well he wasn’t; he was, at best, a tolerated presence for the sake of the children.

So things dragged on, with Stan and the kids showing no signs of leaving or looking for some other place to live, and Ford letting them. They stayed upstairs in the main house and Ford stayed in the basement, only venturing up when he had to, and doing his best to avoid Stanley when he did, while everyone avoided Ford. It was a tenuous situation, and one that couldn’t go on indefinitely, but Stan and Ford both seemed bound and determined to see how long they could make it last for.

 

* * *

 

There was a stranger in Ford’s kitchen making snacks: a gawky girl with vibrant red hair up in high pigtails and slightly protruding lips that spoke of heavy orthodontia. Well, not a total stranger considering her familiarity with the kitchen; probably she was one of Dipper and Mabel’s friends, most likely the previously mentioned Wendy given her complete lack of reaction to Ford. And he did mean _complete_ lack. Ford had come up to the kitchen to give himself a brief respite from sorting through the broken remains of the portal to see what might be salvaged, and to get himself something to eat. Upon discovering the stranger already in there, Ford had stood in the doorway for a minute in confusion, greeted her, and then spent the past five minutes moving around the kitchen making himself a sandwich, and she had yet to give any indication that she was aware she wasn’t alone in the room. The alternative, Ford supposed, was that she was angry at Stan for whatever reason, and had confused Ford for him.

“Hey Wendy, are the…” Ford turned to see Dipper standing in the doorway to the living room, and the boy’s words stuttered to a halt when their eyes briefly met. Dipper swallowed, then continued “are the snacks ready yet?”

“Hello Dipper,” Ford said, doing his best to sound friendly.

“Hi, Great Uncle Ford,” Dipper replied, his gaze skittering past Ford as though he knew the polite thing to do was to look at Ford when talking to him, but he couldn’t quite make himself do it. “Wendy?”

“The popcorn is alllmoosst” – the microwave dinged – “done. I just need to put it in a bowl and then movie night is good to go. Why don’t you grab the nachos and the sodas off the table and I’ll be out there in a second,” Wendy said.

Dipper agreed, darted in, grabbed the food, and darted back out again as quickly as he could.

Ford happened to be standing next to the cabinet where the large bowls were held, so he reached up and grabbed one and handed it to Wendy. She didn’t snatch it out of his hand, like he was half-expecting her to, but neither did she thank him or in any way show that she realized that the bowl had been given to her by a person and not a helpful piece of furniture. But just when Ford thought she was going to leave the room without ever having acknowledged his presence, she turned around and glared at him.

“Look dude, I don’t know what your deal is, if Stan really did something horrible to you or if he saved you and you’re just being a butt and refusing to thank him, or whatever. But Dipper and Mabel are my friends and they’re sad and scared and hurt because of you, so you need to get your act together or I’m going to come down to your secret basement and kick your butt.”

Likely she meant to come off as intimidating, but Ford had seen far too many horrible things to be frightened by a child. Instead he found her self-righteous fury to be very humbling. “Things between my brother and I aren’t quite as simple to sort out as all that. But I am, I mean I will try to get there. And I certainly never meant to hurt Dipper or Mabel; thank you for looking out for them.”

Wendy’s glare went down a number of degrees in intensity, dropping from fury to exasperation. “I know you didn’t _mean_ to hurt them; if I thought you had done it on purpose, I’d already be kicking your butt right now. Just, figure it out, you know?" 

She didn’t wait for a reply, exiting to the living room and calling out to the other kids gleefully, as if the whole previous interlude had never happened.

 

* * *

 

Ford approached the house, feeling a bit the worse for wear, but satisfied. Celestabellebethabelle’s friends had not taken it well when they saw Ford standing over their unconscious friend with her mane in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. But Ford had gotten the hair in the end, and learned a valuable lesson: in addition to being frustrating, unicorns were also a bunch of lying jerks.

He slowed as he reached the house and saw Dipper sitting on the steps to the porch, looking morose. Dipper looked up when he saw Ford approaching, but, for the first time since that very first evening, he didn’t immediately leave. Ford decided that the barrier he had been planning on making – which was really just a precaution at this point, since he had yet to see any sign of Bill since returning to his home dimension – could wait a bit longer.

Ford sat down on the step next to Dipper, but being careful to leave as much space between the two of them as he could manage; he didn’t want to make Dipper feel uncomfortable enough that he did decide to leave after all. “Thinking big thoughts?” Ford asked, after sitting in silence for a minute failed to get any kind of reaction from Dipper, or to inspire Ford with anything particularly clever or insightful to say.

“I guess,” Dipper replied succinctly, a far cry from the clever boy brimming with questions that Ford had briefly met before he had ruined everything.

Dipper’s fingers drummed a nervous tattoo against the book in his lap, and Ford smiled a little when he recognized what the boy was holding. The distinctive golden handprint was covered by a folded up piece of paper sitting on top of the book, but the familiar red leather and metal fastenings were unmistakable. “Which one of my journals is that?”

“It’s mine. I mean, it’s the third one.” Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. “Did you want it back?”

Truthfully, Ford had been meaning to ask for his journals back from the kids. He just hadn’t gotten around to it yet because it had seemed more convenient to use the photocopies that Stan had made and left down in Ford’s lab, rather than try to hunt down two children who wanted nothing to do with him and seemed upset by his very presence and demand his things back. True, the copies hadn’t preserved anything that Ford had written in invisible ink, but from what little he had seen of those notes in his first journal, he had come to two conclusions: firstly, that the scientific soundness of anything he had written after he got to that point was dubious at best, and second, he really did not want to revisit the frame of mind he had been in at that time. Still, he had been meaning to ask for them back, if for no other reason than the comforting familiarity of holding the books in his hands. And here was Dipper, with Ford’s journal in his possession at this very moment and offering to give it back to Ford, and yet…

And yet, Dipper had identified this particular journal by calling it “his,” and he sounded so resigned when he had offered to return it. “You know, I haven’t been in this dimension in a long time, but I think I remember a saying from my youth that would apply to this situation. It went, if I recall, ‘finders keepers, losers weepers.’”

Dipper looked up at him, surprised and with an amused half-smile, only for the expression to wipe of his face a moment later, as Dipper abruptly looked away again. Ah, well, it was a start.

“What else do you have there?” Ford asked, reaching toward the paper sitting on top of the journal without thinking.

Dipper jerked away, partially rotating his body so that his upper half blocked Ford’s access to the items in his lap. The action seemed to be an unconscious one on Dipper’s part, as a second later he turned back to his former position, blushing slightly.

“That was extremely rude of me,” Ford said, before Dipper could try and offer any apologies for his behavior. “Would you mind if I had a look at your paper?” Dipper didn’t answer right away, and continued to look anxious, so after a minute Ford added, “It’s alright if you don’t want to show me; I won’t be upset.” In fact, he would be upset, but not at Dipper.

“I…” Dipper chewed on his lip. “I have to remind Mabel sometimes: you look with your eyes, not your hands.”

“Of course. I actually used to say the very same thing to my own twin when I was your age,” Ford said with a smile. He saw a lot of himself in Dipper, or at least he was fairly certain he did from what he had observed that first evening and during their very brief and rare encounters since, and he thought there was a lot he could teach the boy, provided he found a way to mend their relationship.

“I know,” Dipper said. “Grunkle Stan told us.” Right, his ‘Sixer and Lee’ stories. What an odd, and oddly discomfiting, thought: that Dipper could learn from Ford without needing Ford to be there to teach him.

“Well then,” Ford said, pointedly lacing his hands together and placing them in his lap, “may I see what it is you have there?”

“Okay,” Dipper said. He picked up the paper and, very carefully and gently, unfolded it. It was clear that he had had it for a long time, and likely carried it around with him a lot, as the edges had started to get worn and tattered, and the ink had begun to fade away as well. That was probably why Ford’s eye was immediately drawn not to the large and somewhat ornate title on the page, but to a spot roughly in the center where someone, probably Dipper, had scratched out the ‘ford’ in ‘Stanford’ so violently it had ripped a small whole in the page and written above it ‘ley.’

Oh. That was… “I hadn’t realized that Stan adopted you as his son. And your sister as his daughter I assume.” He’d known that Stan was their guardian, of course, but he hadn’t known that Stan had gone as far as to adopt the children. ~~It was getting harder and harder to think of his brother as selfish.~~

Dipper shook his head. ”No, Grunkle Stan is still our great uncle. He adopted us so he could make sure he was going to be the one taking care of us, but he says our real dad was a good person who loved us a lot, and you don’t replace family.” Dipper paused and chewed on his lip some more. Ford waited, thinking that perhaps the boy needed a minute to get his thoughts in order, and, after a few moments, Dipper continued. “But Grunkle Stan took us instead of letting Aunt Karen do it like it was originally going to be, because Aunt Karen is the worst and she wouldn’t have taken good care of us. And Soos’s dad left him with Abuelita when Soos was really little and he never visits or calls or anything. So I was thinking that maybe it’s okay to replace family sometimes, if they don’t treat you like family.”

Ford’s throat closed up and he had to swallow a few times before he could speak again. “Big thoughts indeed. Is… Do you think that I warrant replacing?”

Dipper shrugged one shoulder, which perhaps wasn’t the response Ford had hoped for, but it was better than the unequivocal yes he had feared. “Grunkle Stan worked really hard for a really long time to save you, and you never even thanked him for it, and you were going to kick him out. I don’t understand why you would do something like that.”

Somehow Ford didn’t think ‘I was only going to kick him out because at the time I didn’t realize he was your permanent guardian and you and you’re sister were living here too’ would go over all that well. Which left the question of how to explain things in a way that an eight year old, albeit a very intelligent one, would be able to grasp. “The first thing you should know is that Stan and I have reached an understanding,” – granted, it was an unspoken understanding, full of avoidance and anger and glares, but it was an understanding – “and no one is getting kicked out. As to why… I bet your sister Mabel has a knack for making big messes.”

“Yeah. She gets stuff all over the place when she’s crafting,” Dipper said with a smile of fond amusement that Ford found familiar in a way he couldn’t place.

“And does she sometimes make a mess of your things too while she’s at it?”

“Sometimes,” Dipper conceded with a shrug.

“And has she ever made such a big mess of your things that you wanted to make her leave so you could get everything back in order again?”

Dipper scrunched his nose and frowned. “Maybe, I guess. But even if she did, I wouldn’t want to make her leave forever. Just until I could get it all cleaned up.”

“Unfortunately Stanley’s messes aren’t that easy to clean up. This house was one I designed and had built to serve as my lab while I studied the anomalies here in Gravity Falls, and Stan turned it into a tourist trap that mocks those very same anomalies. And he stole my name, which is a very serious… thing to do,” Ford said, skirting around the word ‘crime.’

“But he only did all of that to save you,” Dipper protested.

“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as all that; one of the consequences of growing up is that things tend to become more complicated,” Ford told him. Dipper scowled, which Ford could sympathize with. When he had been Dipper’s age, he hated the explanation ‘you’ll understand it when you’re older.’ Of course, he did understand why adults had felt the need use that answer so frequently, now that he was older. Still, that was hardly going to make Dipper feel better now, so Ford cast about for another, safer topic.

“Did you know I made all those journals myself? I mean, obviously I wrote them, but I also made the physical journals.”

Dipper blinked in surprise at the abrupt shift in subject a few times, then glanced down at the book in his lap with interest. “Really? That’s pretty cool.”

“Thank you. I was trying to make something a bit sturdier than the average book one might buy at the store. Though not sturdy enough, it appears,” Ford said, frowning at the visible tears in the cover.

“The pages inside are still good. Well, there are some that got ripped out, but other than that.”

“Ah, well those missing pages are not exactly related to the quality of the journals construction.” Ford having ripped them out himself when at one of his lower points. “But yes, the paper inside is of a special, high-quality make. It’s still paper, so there are of course limits to how durable it can be, but it’s resistant to tears, weather, and the ink fading or running. And, incidentally, I actually have some more of that very same paper left down in my study.”

“Can I have a piece of it?” Dipper asked, the words practically bursting out of him.

“Of course; you can have all of it, if you like,” Ford said. In fact, he had been leading up to offering to create Dipper a journal of his own, but Dipper’s request for a single piece had him intrigued. “Was there something in specific you wanted it for?”

“My certificate is kind of torn up and stuff from me carrying it around, so I thought I could ask Grunkle Stan to make me a new copy on your special paper,” Dipper said.

Oh. Ford hadn’t thought… But of course that’s what Dipper wanted the paper for. Of course. “You know, I think I could help you out with that.”

Dipper looked at him skeptically. “But Grunkle Stan keeps the original copies in his safe.”

“You might not be aware of this, but your Great Uncle Ford is actually a wanted man across a number of different dimensions; I think I can handle getting into a basic safe. Besides, I can probably guess Stanley’s combination: thirteen, forty-four… well, I’m sure it will only take me two or three tries.”

In fact, it would up taking him four tries, but Ford did manage to get into the safe and retrieve Dipper’s adoption certificate. He was thrown for a minute by the fact that the certificate said ‘Mason Pines’ on it, before realizing that Dipper could hardly be the boy’s legal name. Making a copy of it was a slightly more fraught experience, more due to Ford’s worries about what might happen than anything that actually did – honestly, Stan had no business sticking this particular copier in his study like it was common office appliance.

When the, mercifully not alive, copy came out, Ford grabbed it quickly before Dipper could, earning him a slightly hurt look from the boy. “Just one quick adjustment,” Ford told him. He pulled a pen out of his pocket and quickly crossed out the name ‘Stanford’ and replaced it with ‘Stanley.’ “Here you are.”

Dipper took the paper from him. As he inspected the change Ford had made, Ford could almost swear he saw the boy going a bit misty-eyed. “Thanks, Great Uncle Ford,” Dipper said. For a second, Ford almost, almost thought Dipper was going to hug him, but after throwing a smile Ford’s way, he scampered off instead. It was progress, at least.

(It occurred to Ford much later that, legally, it was his name on the children’s adoption certificates, which meant, legally, he could kick Stan out of his house and keep the kids himself. Legally, he had every right to take the children away from Stan.

Even just thinking it left Ford fighting the urge to throw up.)

 

* * *

 

Ford stared resolutely at the campfire, trying to banish the tricklings of fear and the near certainty that he was being watched from the back of his mind. It wasn’t a remotely rational feeling; he hadn’t seen any shadows moving beyond the ring of firelight or heard any strange sounds or even smelt the odor of any of Gravity Falls’ more pungent anomalies. It was only his paranoia-fueled imagination making him think there was any danger here. Well, any physical danger.

The morning of the day before yesterday Ford had finally left on his extremely belated trip to the caves where he’d first discovered the information on Bill. He didn’t have particularly high hopes of there being anything there that he hadn’t already discovered elsewhere in his travels through the multiverse, but it was worth a look. And certainly it was worth destroying the inscriptions on summoning Bill. Unfortunately, while he had accurately recalled that it was roughly a three day hike to reach the caves, he hadn’t thought to take into account that his memories of how to get there had become somewhat eroded over the intervening years. So despite his steady and relatively quick pace and taking full advantage of the long hours of summer daylight, by the time he had reached his destination today it had been too late to do anything but settle in for the night. If he would have known how disturbing he was going to find sleeping right outside the caves, he would have backtracked a bit before setting up camp, but there was nothing to be done about that now either.

Ford pulled his bag over, thinking that he might be able to distract himself by flipping through one of his journals. He had brought all three with him – well, technically he had brought the first one and his copies of the other two, the originals still being with Dipper and Mabel – just in case. He started to reach for the first one as it was the only one of them to not have any reference to Bill, but then decided on the third one instead; he rather liked the idea of reading about some of his and Fiddleford’s adventures. (He was really going to have to put his foot down and make someone tell him what had happened to Fiddleford sometime soon.) But the packet of papers that Ford closed his hand around couldn’t possibly be either of his copies of the journals, being both noticeably thinner and held together by a staple rather than the simple binding that Ford had used. Intrigued, Ford pulled the packet out and set it on his lap, where he stared at it in total bafflement for several long seconds.

 _The Totally Epic Saga of Sixer and Lee, the Best Twins in the World Except for Maybe Dipper and Mabel, Actually It’s Probably a Tie, Part Four: The Long-Awaited Reunion Which Goes Really Great Except Then It Doesn’t and Everyone Is Super Sad Until the Really Awesome Reconciliation_ , by Soos Ramirez.

This must be the fanfiction thing that Soos mentioned, snuck into Ford’s bag for some unknown reason, he finally decided. He stared at the front page a little longer before taking out his pen and beginning liberally cross out words. When he was done, the new title read: _The Saga of Sixer and Lee, Part Four: Reunion and Reconciliation_. A bit on the nose and not particularly eloquent, but it was decent enough. That taken care of, Ford flipped the page and began reading. If nothing else, it would probably serve as a fairly thorough distraction.

He found himself making frequent use of his pen throughout the story, both to fix the numerous grammar mistakes and to point out some of the issues with the story structure as well: the occasional abrupt scene transition, the constant inexplicably shifting point of view, and the weak grasp the story had on the Sixer character, especially in comparison to the others, to start. But in spite of that, there was something to the story, possibly in the phrasing or the descriptions or maybe just in the fact that Ford was intimately familiar with the subject matter, that communicated the emotions it wanted to clear and strong. Like the conclusion: no matter how ridiculous and unrealistic Ford thought it was that Sixer would thank Lee for saving his life and that would, almost instantly it seemed, solve their all problems, in the moment Ford could _feel_ it and wanted it to be true more than anything. It was a little jarring, in a way, to reach the end of the story and find himself back in reality.

Ford flipped back through the pages again and found himself feeling just a bit guilty at just how many corrections he had made. Soos might be the oldest of the children that had attached themselves to Stan, but he was still a child – or, at least, Ford thought he was a child based on his behavior. He was relatively young, at any rate. And children should be encouraged in their interests. Ford couldn’t take back the corrections he had made, and even if he could he wouldn’t, because how else would the boy learn, but he could and did leave a little note at the end, pointing out a few of his favorite parts and thanking Soos for sharing the story with him.

Three days later, after Ford had returned home with nothing to show for his journey except a lingering slightly smoky smell from burning all the paintings off the cave walls with his ray gun, he placed the edited story behind the counter in the gift shop where he thought Soos was most likely to find it, and then more or less forgot about it.

At least, until another three days later, when Ford was up in the main house to take a shower – he knew he should have had one installed down in the basement when the house was being built – and ended up being the victim of what he could only describe as a walk-by hugging. He’d been headed down the hallway toward the bathroom when he saw Soos coming down the same hallway in the opposite direction. Ford gave a brief nod in greeting, which Soos returned, and then went back to considering more important matters, like what he was going to do if that really had been a crack in the glass in the Rift’s containment dome and what he could possibly get Dipper and Mabel for their upcoming birthday to make up for eight missed ones. So he was taken completely unawares when, as Soos passed Ford, Soos turned, grabbed Ford around the middle and gave a quick squeeze, then let go and continued on his way as though it had never happened. It was bizarre, but then Soos himself was rather bizarre as far as Ford could tell, so he decided not to worry about it.

When Ford had finished showering, he opened the bathroom door to be confronted with a pile of papers sitting on the ground directly in front of him. Picking them up and shuffling through revealed them to be _The Saga of Sixer and Lee_ , parts one through three, plus a new draft of part four. He looked around, but there was no immediate sign of Soos hanging about, and the placement seemed too deliberate for them to have been dropped on accident. So Ford shrugged, tucked the papers under one arm, and took them back down to the basement with him. You never know when you might be in need of a distraction.

 

* * *

 

“Hi Great Uncle Ford!”

Ford stopped dead in his tracks. No one greeted him in that chipper and excited of a tone. Dipper had gotten close to that level twice since he’d started talking to Ford again, once when Ford had been teaching him how to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, which the boy was proving to be quite adept at, and another time when Dipper was telling Ford that since Ford had been sucked into the portal, they had made nine more movies and four spin-off TV series of one of Ford’s favorite shows when he was a kid: _Wagon Train to the Stars_. But he still greeted Ford hesitantly, as though half-expecting Ford to suddenly turn into a monster of some kind. Wendy’s greetings, when she deigned to greet Ford at all, were limited to a nod or a laconic “’Sup?” and Soos still wasn’t actually talking to Ford, presumably as a show of loyalty to Stan, despite the numerous story drafts that kept conveniently finding themselves in Ford’s path. As for Stan… well, the two of them were managing civility when they had to talk, but they were still avoiding doing so whenever possible.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” Mabel continued brightly. “Get in here a minute.”

A very small part of Ford wanted to brush off her summons, or at least request that she wait for the five minutes it would take to safely sequester the rift in his study. But Ford squashed that urge down. Honestly, now that the Rift’s containment dome had been slathered in the alien adhesive, it could be used as a baseball without any real danger of the Rift being opened. Putting it away would only be for Ford’s own peace of mind, and if his niece wanted to see him, then that was more important.

“Hello,” he said, coming into the kitchen to sit down at the table, where it appeared that a small explosion of arts and craft supplies had gone off. At the epicenter of the explosion was Mabel, who currently had a pair of knitted red ribbons in one hand, and a hot glue gun in the other, which she was using to affix the ribbons to a many-pointed cardboard star.

“How did your mission go today?” she asked him, while making slight adjustments to the positioning of the ribbons.

“My mission?” Ford echoed. He hadn’t told anyone what he had been planning on doing today. He had considered telling Dipper and inviting the boy along, but he thought it unlikely that Dipper would agree to go without seeking permission from Stan first, and there was no chance that Stan would agree to it, either out of spite or because he arbitrarily decided it was too dangerous. Though, on second thought Ford had to admit that worries about the dangers Crash Site Omega might pose for an eight year old might not be entirely unfounded, and it would probably be prudent to put off bringing the children along on such adventures until they were a bit older.

“Yeah, you left the house this morning looking all serious like this,” Mabel contorted her features in a way that was likely supposed to appear serious, but mainly came off comical, “so I thought you must’ve been going on a mission.”

“That’s very astute of you. Yes, I was going on a mission this morning, one to help contain the damage Stan caused when he started up the portal again.”

Mabel’s expression briefly flashed a moue of displeasure, but she shook it off and smiled at him again. “And…? How’d it go?”

“Well. I haven’t completely solved the problem, but I was able to apply a stop-gap measure to buy more time, which was my primary purpose in going out today.”

“Good job!” Mabel said, setting aside what she was working on to sort through the pile of stickers to her right. Eventually she found what she was looking for and slapped a sticker on his lapel: a garish yellow-green cat with purple stripes, an uncomfortably large grin, and a caption that read, ‘Purrrrrfect!!!’ “Plus if you scratch it, it smells like peaches,” Mabel informed him. With a sense of morbid curiosity, Ford scratched the sticker and held it up to his nose; it did indeed smell like peaches.

“Thank you,” Ford said. There was a long moment of silence following that, which seemed awkward to Ford, though Mabel, who was busy adding a pin clasp to what Ford now assumed was the back of her cardboard star, didn’t seem to notice. “And what have you been working on today?” Ford asked when the silence got to be too much.

“I’m making an award,” Mabel told him.

“What kind of award?”

“An award for you, silly. That’s why I called you over here.”

Ford felt a warn sensation in his chest. He had been trying to do right by the children ever since he’d messed up big time that first evening, and it was nice to know that he was making, apparently significant, progress. He reached out for the award, then stopped himself, remembering that first real conversation he had had with Dipper. “May I see it?”

Mabel frown thoughtfully and gave a few pokes, first gently, then firmer, to the ribbons and the pin clasp. Satisfied, she nodded and held it up for Ford, “Here you go; try it on.”

One look at the front made it immediately apparent what the roll of gold foil circular stickers that Mabel had was for. She had covered the front of her cardboard star with a series of overlapping rings until the entire thing was gold in appearance. Then she had taken a combination of black pen and silver glitter glue and written ‘NOT AS MUCH OF A JERK AS YOU COULD HAVE BEEN.’ The whole thing was finished off by a sticker of an apple that was both crying and giving a thumbs up.

“Thank you, Mabel. It’s very… direct,” Ford said uncertainly, taking the creation and pining it on his jacket beneath the cat sticker.

“Sure is!” Mabel said.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but do you think there’s any way I might be able to graduate up to something a little better, like ‘much less of a jerk than you could have been,’ or even ‘not a jerk?’”

“Look, if it were entirely up to me, you’d already be at ‘a pretty okay guy.’ Cause you helped Dipper out with his certificate and you do all that nerdy stuff with him, and you helped Soos with his fanfiction, and you’re going to take me to meet a unicorn.”

“I am?” Ford said. That was news to him.

“C’mon Great Uncle Ford, did you think I wouldn’t recognize the unicorn hair around the outside of the shack. I’m obsessed with unicorns! You have to take me to meet one!”

“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea,” Ford said hesitantly – unicorns were jerks that Mabel didn’t need to be exposed to, not to mention that Ford wasn’t exactly in their good books – and Mabel’s face fell. She looked absolutely devastated. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

Mabel screamed with delight. “I can’t wait to tell Candy and Grenda and Wendy and Pacifica that we get to meet a unicorn!”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell your friends about this,” Ford started and Mabel’s face fell again. “At least, not until I get a chance to clear it with the unicorns first.” Mabel let out another cry of glee, and in spite of the thought of the onerous task Ford had just signed himself up for, he couldn’t help but smile at her. “So what do you say; you think that’ll move me up a few levels?”

“It’s definitely helping,” Mabel said. “But if you really want to get a better award, then what you have to do is tell Grunkle Stan thank you for saving you and the two of you need to hug it out.”

Ford supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by that response, but it was… disappointing, to be reminded that he was the outsider here. “It’s not as simple as all that,” he told her.

“Course it is,” Mabel insisted. “Hugs fix everything.”

Ford sighed. He hated to spoil her innocence, even a little bit, but the truth was hugs did not fix everything, certainly not what was between him and Stan. “How much do you know about why the two of us are fighting?”

“Dipper says that you said that you’re mad at Grunkle Stan because he borrowed your name and because he changed your house all around. But really the two of you were already fighting before that because Grunkle Stan said in the story about how Sixer fell into the portal that the two of you were fighting and not paying attention and that’s how it happened. And you were fighting then because Grunkle Stan was mad that you didn’t want to see him even though you hadn’t seen him in ten years because your poophead dad kicked him out of the house when you were in high school. And that happened because Grunkle Stan accidentally broke your cool science fair project and was too scared to tell you, so it was his fault that you didn’t get into your super cool nerd school. And I think that’s it,” Mabel said, tapping on the side of her chin thoughtfully.

Ford found himself taken aback. Most of what Mabel had said wasn’t that strange for her to know, when Ford thought about it, but her abbreviated version of the events of the science fair had caught him by surprise. Not that Stan had claimed that his part in the affair was an accident – Ford vaguely recalled him saying as much on the night that it happened – but that he still laid the blame for it on himself. Ford would have assumed Stan would try to lie and write it off as an accident so as to minimize his culpability in the matter and to make himself look better, but if he was going to accept fault regardless, then why lie about it? Unless he wasn’t lying at all, and what happened that night hadn’t been a deliberate, planned act of betrayal, but just a stupid kid making a stupid mistake.

Not that any of that really mattered, because Ford was an adult and he was ~~supposed to be~~ past what happened over 35 years ago. No, what he was angry about now was more immediate and pressing concerns, like identity theft and Stan potentially bringing about the apocalypse. “I suppose that is the gist of it. But all of that can’t be fixed with just a thank you and a hug, especially since I have no intention of thanking Stanley for what he did. I know this might be hard to understand, because from what you’ve seen, he was just trying to save me, and he succeeded in that. But what he did also could have brought about the end of the universe” – and still might, though no need to worry her about that right now – “which means it was wrong for him to do. And you shouldn’t thank someone for doing the wrong thing,” Ford informed her gently.

Mabel grinned at him. “Grunkle Ford I think being stuck on the other side of the portal has made your brain all mushy,” she said, standing in her chair and reaching over to knock him on the head a few times to underscore her point.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s like you said, Grunkle Stan was just trying to save you. And the most important thing isn’t what you do or even whether or not you succeed. The most important thing is that you try your best.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ford made his way upstairs from the basement and came to stand in the doorway of the living room, where Stan was watching some inane show or other on TV. Ford had had a lot of time to think over the past couple of days – while creating a device capable of sealing the Rift had taken a stroke of brilliance and a lot of intensive work, the actual act of sealing it, after removing it from the alien adhesive-encased containment dome, which had been a task in and of itself, had been as mindless as it was time consuming. He had appreciated the time, though, because it gave Ford the opportunity to finally figure out what he wanted to say to his brother. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true; Ford knew what he wanted to _communicate_ , but the exact words to use to do so seemed to be escaping him at the moment. He knew he really shouldn’t be putting this off any longer, but maybe just one more day to get his thoughts in order…

“Ford, just say whatever it is you want to say. You standing there watching me is starting to get a little creepy.” Ford startled, suddenly realizing that Stan had turned the TV off and was staring at him expectantly. “Is this about the kids? Because you absolutely do not have my permission to do anything dangerous with them, but if you’re trying to bond or whatever, that’s fine. The kids are happier when they like you, and things are better for everyone when they’re happy.”

“No, it’s not about the children,” Ford said, taking a few steps and entering the room more fully. “It’s… Stanley, I can’t thank you for pulling me out of the portal.” Well, off to a great start there, genius. There’s no way Stan could possibly take that wrong.

Predictably, Stan’s expression darkened. “Can’t say I was getting my hopes up, but nice of you to let me know not to bother,” Stan said, his voice dripping with sarcasm and something even more bitter.

“That’s not what I meant,” Ford said. “That is, it is what I meant, but there’s a greater context to it that I need you to understand.” Stan didn’t look impressed by that explanation, but he at least seemed willing to let Ford continue. “I can’t thank you because, no matter what your reasons were for what you did, the fact is that portal never should have been opened again, because doing so ran the risk of destroying our universe. And that is not a hyperbole, there was a very real possibility of opening that portal resulting in the destruction of the universe; in a way, that’s what it was designed to do.”

“You designed a machine to destroy the universe,” Stan said flatly.

“No. Well, yes. Well, it wasn’t exactly… It was a complicated situation,” Ford prevaricated. Even now that the danger had passed for this universe, Ford didn’t feel comfortable admitting to how Bill had tricked him. 

“So un-complicate it,” Stan said.

“Look, that part’s not what’s important. What’s important is that, regardless of your intentions, risking the entire universe just to save one person is not the right thing to do, if for no other reason than if you destroy the universe, then any efforts to save that person become moot. But,” Ford said loudly, overriding the protest that he was sure Stan had been about to give, “just because intentions won’t change the end results, that doesn’t mean they don’t matter. I can’t thank you for what you did, because I think it was wrong, but I _can_ thank you for wanting to save me and for never giving up on me, even after over twenty-five years. So, thank you, Stanley.”

There, that was the best Ford could do, his peace offering. It wasn’t going to solve everything, he knew, because it wasn’t that simple, but it was a start. That’s what they needed right now, and if Stan was too proud to reach out (or too wary because every time he’d done so in the past he’d gotten burned), then Ford would.

It was a good start, it seemed, from the way years of tension – tension that Ford hadn’t even noticed until now and when he had stopped being able to read his brother effortlessly? – bled off Stan in response. “You’re welcome. And hey, I’m not sorry for saving you, even if you think it was wrong, but I’m sorry if I screwed up how I went about it.”

Ford felt a wave of emotion wash over him at that, so strong he had to close his eyes for a second.

“Ford?”

“I needed to hear that.” Though even Ford hadn’t realized how much he needed to until Stan had said it. Because Stan was always, always spinning things, even back when they had been kids. It was always ‘don’t worry about it’ or ‘it’s not that bad’ or ‘look at the bright side’ or ‘maybe there’s a silver lining to me wrecking your chances to getting into your dream school and ruining your life.’ Wait, stop, he was an adult; he was past that. Truthfully, it was something he mostly liked about his brother, something he even needed sometimes, because when things started going very bad, Ford had a tendency to catastrophize and make them worse.

(Ford could imagine an alternate universe, one where Stan had realized that treasure hunting wasn’t a viable life plan, and Ford hadn’t gotten into West Coast Tech for a different reason. In that universe, Ford doesn’t wind up at Backupsmore, because when he’s spiraling downward,sure he would never be able to get into any college or ever recover from this rejection, Stan is right there saying, ‘Are you kidding me? My brother’s a genius. There’s hundreds, no thousands, millions of schools out there dying to get you to go there.’ And then Ford tells them there aren’t even a million colleges in the world period, but he’s smiling while he says it and thinking ‘maybe.’ And another one where Ford had called Stan up to Gravity Falls before everything went horribly wrong to reconnect because Ford was an adult and he was past childish grudges and hadn’t seen his brother in years. In that universe, Ford never descends down to the depths of paranoia and despair because when the truth comes out and all Ford can think is how his Muse was a monster who betrayed him, Stan is right there saying, ‘Okay, so what do we need to do to stop him? I mean, he’s a triangle that dresses up like he thinks he’s Mr. Monopoly. I’m pretty sure we can take him.’ And Ford doesn’t smile because he can’t right then, but he does think, ‘maybe.’ And another… well, he has had a lot of time to think these past couple of days.)

So maybe sometimes Stan’s relentless optimism, even to the point of being unrealistic, was good for Ford. But other times, Ford just wanted to hear his brother say, ‘I’m sorry. I messed up, and you got hurt, and I’m sorry.’ “I _really_ needed to hear that,” Ford repeated.

“I told you I was sorry already, didn’t I?” Stan said, his tone sounding like it wanted to be light and joking but wasn’t quite able to manage it.

“No, you never did, for any of it,” Ford told him, but there was no venom in it. How could there be when Stan looked so shocked by the idea?

“Well I am; I’m sorry for all of it. I’m sorry I broke your nerd project and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you so you could fix it and I’m sorry I messed up your chances of getting into that school and ruined your life. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when things got all screwy up here and you needed help and I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to what you were trying to tell me when I did get here. I’m sorry for threatening to burn your journal and starting that fight and for pushing you into the portal. I’m sorry that it took me over twenty-five years to save you. I’m sorry that I took your name, your house, your life. And I’m sorry for all the things you missed: I’m sorry you missed saying good-bye to Ma and Pa and Shermie, and you missed those two kids being born, and –“

“That’s enough,” Ford said, his eye screwed shut tight against the stinging in them. It had been freeing at first, to finally get the apologies he had been owed, but the worn out and broken down litany had just kept going and going until it was too much. How had Stan been carrying this much guilt around; why hadn’t Ford noticed? He took a deep breath in, then let it out and opened his eyes again. “It’s okay, Stanley. I forgive you.”

Stan laughed, harsh and full of self-hatred. “It’s funny, you know. I apologized to you so many times in my head, I guess I forgot I never did it out loud. I really am a screw-up, huh?”

“You’re not a screw-up. I won’t deny that you have screwed up in the past, because you have, but so have I and so has everyone else in the world. That doesn’t mean it’s all you are.” One of Ford’s screw ups had been forgetting that fact, and letting his own hurt and betrayal and their dad’s opinions color his memories of Stan into a caricature of who his brother really was. “You think those kids would look up to you as much as they do if you were a screw up?”

“Eh, they’re kids, what do they know?” Stan said, but the mention of the family Stan had made for himself did bring Stan’s mood up somewhat, as Ford had hoped it might.

“They know a lot more than I do, at least when it comes to family,” Ford admitted. “They get that from you.”

“Yeah, well, they’re smart kids,” Stan said, apparently completely unconcerned by the fact that he’d just contradicted his previous statement.

“They are,” Ford agreed, smiling slightly. Then the expression dropped and he sighed a little. He wasn’t sure how Stan was going to take what he had to say next, but Ford didn’t think he’d be particularly pleased by it. “There’s something else. I’ve decided that you and the kids are welcome to stay in my house as long as you like, and you can keep the Mystery Shack up and running as well.”

“Don’t strain yourself with excitement,” Stan remarked, half amusement and half annoyance. “Look is this about me taking over your science-y space for the Mystery Shack stuff? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking, what with one thing and the other I’ve got a decent bit of money saved up, especially now that the mortgage is paid off, so we could probably talk to Manly Dan and get him to give us a good deal on adding a couple of additions to the place.”

“Stanley, that’s…” Ford interrupted. “It’s a nice offer, but when I said you all could stay it was in part because I won’t be. It’s going to take a few weeks to get my portable wormhole portal gun working again after the damage done to it coming through the old portal, but after that I’m leaving.”

“No!”

They both froze, Stan halfway up out of his chair, neither of them having expected Stan’s outburst. They stared at each other for a minute, but before either of them could think of anything to say, they heard the pounding of two pairs of feet running down the stairs.

“Grunkle Stan!” “Grunkle Stan!”

“Is it a gremgoblin?” Dipper called.

“Or the IRS?” Mabel added.

The children’s shouts were enough to shake Stan out of his shocked state, and he sunk back down into his chair and glared at Ford, who was still regarding Stan with confusion and surprise. That was how the kids found them when they came in the room a moment later.

“Are you two fighting again?” Mabel asked, scrutinizing them both.

“No,” Ford said. He hadn’t expected Stan to react that strongly to Ford’s decision, admittedly, but before that they’d been getting along better than they had in a very, very long time.

“Yes,” Stan answered simultaneously, then scowled at Ford. “You know what, you’re right: we aren’t fighting. Because every time, every single time, I think things are finally going to work out between us, you just want us to get as far away from each other as possible. So fine, leave if that’s what you want to do, ‘cause I’m done with it.”

That wasn’t… Ford hadn’t…

“Grunkle Ford? Are you leaving on another camping trip?” Dipper asked uncertainly. “Because you said you’d take me next time if you weren’t going to do anything dangerous.”

“We can all go,” Mabel added excitedly. “Family camping trip!”

“I’m afraid this trip would be much too dangerous for you,” Ford told them. “And it’s not a camping trip either. In a few weeks, I’ll be leaving this dimension again and going back to traveling the multiverse.”

Mabel punched him.

It didn’t physically hurt, of course. Mabel was only a little girl, not even nine years old yet for another week’s time, so she lack the sheer muscle power to hurt him, even if she did manage to hit him right in the kidney. But the shock of his little niece, one of the sweetest and brightest people he’d ever met, actually punching him still sent him reeling.

“That’s not trying!” she screamed, then she ran over and climbed up on Stan’s lap, looping her arms tight around his neck and glaring at Ford.

“Mabel,” Stan said, a warning edge to his tone.

“Don’t tell me to say sorry, ‘cause I won’t, ‘cause I’m not,” she said defiantly. “Plus you said I could hit anyone that was trying to hurt me or my family, and Great Uncle Ford is hurting you.”

Stan had no response to that. Neither did Ford, save perhaps that he hadn’t intended to hurt Stan this badly, but then Ford was the one who had just been saying that intentions didn’t change the facts of a situation. And the fact was he had clearly upset Stanley, even if he hadn’t anticipated it and didn’t fully understand why. He hadn’t expected Stan to be glad about Ford leaving exactly, but prior to ten minutes ago the two of them had been in the middle of a fight that had spanned months, if not decades, and two months ago Ford had threatened Stan’s home and livelihood. Surely Stan shouldn’t be this disturbed at the thought of Ford leaving.

“I don’t understand.” Ford turned to see Dipper still standing just inside the doorway, regarding Ford with a confused and plaintive expression. “Why do you want to leave us?”

“That’s not it at all,” Ford said, dropping down on one knee so he could look Dipper in the eye and place his hands on the boy’s shoulders. Dipper flinched at the contact, but he didn’t actually try to pull away at least. “I don’t want to leave you, not any of you.” Ford gave a pointed look at Stan, imploring his brother to understand. “This is about a mistake I made a very long time ago and how I have to take responsibility to fix it.”

“So you’re going to fix it and come right back, right?” Dipper asked.

“I’m afraid this isn’t going to be something quick or easy to fix. And even if I do manage to fix it, I don’t have any way of returning to this particular dimension. I won’t be coming back,” Ford said gently.

“But you have to come back,” Dipper protested. “You can fix it and then invent a machine to get back here, because you’re really smart and I know you can do it, so you _have_ to come back.” Dipper swiped at his eyes furiously and Ford found himself completely at a loss for words.

“What mistake?” Stan asked, startling Ford.

“I’m sorry?”

“Look Ford, you think I don’t know a thing or two about trying to make up for a mistake? So I’m asking what you did that was so bad that you have to leave home forever to fix it.”

Ford hesitated. He had been reluctant to tell everyone the truth of what he had been dealing with, partially for the sake of their own safety. But he’d made things as safe as they could possibly be at this point, so the only thing holding him back now was his pride. It would be hard to admit to how foolish he’d been, but looking at them now – Dipper struggling to pretend he was dry-eyed, Mabel still glaring at him fiercely, and Stan, who had never once given up on bringing Ford back – Ford thought he owed it to them to tell the truth.

“Back when I was first investigating Gravity Falls, there was a point when I hit a roadblock. I got so desperate I was willing to try anything, no matter how ill-advised. That’s when I met him; a mysterious being came to me in my dreams, claiming that he was a muse that chose one brilliant mind a century to inspire and I, blinded by his flattery, believed him. It wasn’t until much later, too late almost, that I learned the truth. That my ‘muse’ had been tricking me and couldn’t be trusted. He wasn’t a muse at all, but the most powerful and dangerous being I had ever encountered that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And what he wanted was nothing more than to destroy our reality.”

“Bill Cipher,” Dipper said. And in that moment, Ford knew true terror.

“How do you know that name?” Ford demanded.

“I-It was in your journal,” Dipper stammered.

“But you haven’t seen him, or made any deals with him,” Ford said.

“No,” Dipper said, shaking his head. Ford grabbed him and pulled him in close, eliciting a squeak of surprise from Dipper. Ford just held Dipper for a moment, reassuring himself that his nephew was here and safe and Bill hadn’t gotten to him.

“And you Mabel?”

“I haven’t seen him,” she said, gripping Stan tighter, probably in response to Ford’s fear. Stan was rubbing a comforting hand up and down her back in response, but the look on his face was not one that Ford liked.

“Stanley?”

“I, uh, may have seen him a couple of times,” Stan admitted, “but not for a really long time. He showed up after you first got sucked through the portal and tried to make a deal with me to bring you back. But he reminded me of, well me, and I didn’t trust him, especially not with how paranoid you’d been acting when I got here. When I wouldn’t deal, I guess he gave up and left.”

“Say rather he turned his attention elsewhere,” Ford corrected. “Bill may be powerful, but the multiverse is infinitely vast and he can’t turn his attention everywhere at once. If he thought he wasn’t making any progress in invading this dimension, it’s not surprising that he might decide to look elsewhere. But Bill is relentless, and he won’t stop until he finds a new dimension he can take over and destroy in his own image.

“All of you should be safe from him now, though. I’ve shielded the house against his influence, and furthermore there shouldn’t be any reason for him to turn his attention back to his dimension again. I’ve finished completely dismantling the portal and fixed the damage it caused in the walls of this dimension, and I’ve destroyed all the references on how to summon Bill that I can find. Now all that’s left to do is for me to go back out there and find a way to get rid of Bill once and for all.”

“And why’s that gotta be you that does it?” Stan asked with narrowed eyes.

“Weren’t you listening? It’s my fault that Bill nearly destroyed this dimension; it’s because I blindly trusted him that the portal was even built in the first place. Now I have to take Bill out, and make up for that mistake.”

“No, you needed to make up for your mistake building the portal – and I turned on the portal too, same as you, so it’s probably my fault too some – by keeping Bill from destroying our dimension, which it sounds like you already did,” Stan said. “But I don’t see as how taking Bill out is your responsibility; it’s not your fault this guy is evil or anything.”

“But it is my responsibility,” Ford said, momentarily reeling for the surety he had felt not twenty minutes ago. “While I was traveling the multiverse, one of the dimensions I found myself in was Dimension 52, where I met an oracle, Jheselbraum the Unswerving. She told me a lot about Bill, but most importantly that I had the face of the one who would destroy Bill.”

Stan scoffed. “I don’t want to say this broad was scamming you into trying to get you to do the dirty work of taking Bill out, but she was definitely scamming you into trying to get you to do the dirty work of taking Bill out.”

Ford shook his head. “I understand why you might think that, but you weren’t there. I’m the one who’s met Jheselbraum and I can assure you she is a true oracle; I trust her.”

Stan opened his mouth to say something, then appeared to reconsider. “Okay, let’s say she is the real deal. How many people do you think there are in all these different dimensions with your face?”

Ford blinked a few times in surprise, the idea having honestly never occurred to him before. “There’s two right in this room,” Mabel added helpfully.

“I don’t think your Grunkle Stan is going to be the one to take out a monster that’s terrorizing all of existence, sweetie,” Stan told her.

“But she makes an excellent point. Across the infinitely large multiverse the number of people with the same face as I have is theoretically infinitely many.” Other Stanford Pines and Stanley Pines for a start, plus relatives of theirs whose faces might be similar enough to be considered the same, and even complete strangers that might coincidentally look identical to Ford. If you cast your net wide enough, the possibilities literally become endless.

“There, see, let one of those other guys worry about Bill,” Stan said.

It was tempting, so tempting. To leave Bill and all of that behind and concentrate on the here and now and his family. Well, Stan’s family. “I can’t. I don’t even know how many of those others would be willing or able to take Bill out,” – Ford didn’t even know if he himself was able, but he was willing, so he had to try, didn’t he? – “and of those that are, I can’t expect them to leave their lives behind when I don’t even know what kind of lives I’m expecting them to leave. It’s better that I go, because you all have your family; you don’t need me.”

“Of course we need you, Grunkle Ford!” Mabel cried. She climbed down off of Stan’s lap, came over to Ford, and grabbed the right sleeve of his sweater, Dipper having never let go of Ford’s left sleeve after Ford released him from the hug earlier. The two of them gripped him tightly, as if they could keep him from leaving just by the force of their hold. “Who else is going to take me to search for the mythical unipegapony?”

“And who else is going to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with me?” Dipper added.

“And you think I spent over twenty-five years trying to fix that portal just to make up for a mistake?” Stan asked. “This is where you belong Ford, with your family.”

“I…”

“I’m sorry I hit you earlier. Well, I’m mostly sorry. So please stay,” Mabel said.

“Please, Grunkle Ford?” Dipper added.

Ford looked at the three of them, all watching him with open, hopeful expressions, though Stan’s was a little more hidden than the kids’ were. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath in. Then he let it out, imagining he could feel decades’ worth of stress and uncertainty and paranoia go with it. “Alright. I’ll stay.”

The kids cheered. “Awkward family hug?” Dipper suggested.

“Awkward family hug!” Mabel agreed enthusiastically, and both kids threw their arms around his neck.

Ford wrapped one arm around each of them, feeling for the first time since he couldn’t remember when that he was at last where he belonged. He looked up at his brother, smiling. “Stanley?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Stan said, but his grumbling was no mask for his pleased expression as he knelt down next to them and joined their group hug, which, despite the name, was far from awkward.

Ford and Stan still had things to work out between them, he knew. The many years of misunderstanding and resentment and anger, even misplaced anger, didn’t go away over the course of a single conversation. And Ford suspected he would still have some work to do to fully make up for his mistakes with the little niblings as well. But they were a family, so whatever was needed, they’d do it, and however long it took, they’d get there.

Maybe it really was just that simple.


End file.
